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New Delhi, Nov 16: Confidently stating that current global economic crisis will not affect the its revenue target for the current fiscal, Larsen&Toubro, the country's leading engineering and construction firm, on Sunday, Nov 16 said it will recruit about 10,000 people in the next three years across the country, primarily in their new business ventures. ''We will hire about 10,000 people in the next three years across the country,'' company Chairman and Managing Director A M Naik told mediapersons on the sidelines of the India Economic Summit.

The recruitment would not be capital intensive but will be driven by technology requirement in their forays into new businesses consisting of railways, power and ship building, he said. The company is carrying out six projects in Gujarat, which alone will give employment to 7,000 people. Out of these six projects, three are company's wholly-owned, while the rest are in joint ventures, Mr Naik said. The CMD also said the hiring process is going on in Coimbatore and Chennai, where the company is laying down its new projects.

He, however, said the recruitment in these new verticals would compensate the slowdown in hiring people in other segments in the wake of current global meltdown. ''We have a history of not retrenching our staff in our overall business... however, we will continue with our normal practice of laying off five per cent employees annually in the info-tech business, who are at the bottom of the performing list,'' he said.

Commenting on the availability of liquidity for the company's expansion plans, Mr Naik said L &T has sufficient funds to finance its expansion plans.

He, however, said the overall industry would need liquidity for their expansions.

He expressed concern over the high rate of interest that is around 12 per cent currently and said it needs to be brought down to seven-eight per cent to make it convenient for the firms and the end users.

Mr Naik said he sees no impact of global slowdown on the company's book-order and expects to achieve its set target for the current financial year.

UNI